19 The Clutches of Cerberus

--> The long-promised trip to Pragia has been seen to. What we found there, I’m sad to say, doesn’t even surprise me. Amidst the crumbling ruin clutched by mutant plant vines we found the fading story of a veritable hell-hole. The Teltin Cell had abducted every child with biotic potential they could get their hands on. All of them were used as test subjects, just so many human lab rats. Any procedure, no matter how horrific, that might theoretically improve biotic strength was carried out upon these children. All were expendable, all except Subject Zero; Jack was the focal point of the entire project. All of the atrocities inflicted upon her and the other children were for the sole purpose of turning her into an invincible super-biotic.

It is unclear if Jack matched their expectations. Her strength certainly exceeds that of any other biotic I’ve met. The astonishing thing is that she retains any level sanity. A mind subject to a childhood of constant torture and abuse, no human contact beyond killing other children, should have turned her into a genuine monster, completely devoid of any semblance of basic humanity. How she managed to cling to sanity, to remain a functional human being in any degree, is beyond me.

Exactly what happened at Teltin is unclear. All that we know for certain is that Jack broke out of her cell and tore through anything in her path. She escaped Teltin, then was captured and abused by pirates. After a mixed career of crime she was again captured and imprisoned on the Purgatory. She’s never had anything like a chance at a normal life. Hopefully, if we survive the mission to stop the Collectors, she will finally get that opportunity.

We found another escapee from Teltin there. The poor fellow, Aresh, he called himself, was drawn back to the place he couldn’t forget. In his crazed state he planned to restart the Teltin project, to discover why they had inflicted such horrors upon him. Jack sent him scampering, where to I know not.

Something fishy about Teltin. We came across communication records that implied the details of their experiments were unknown to the Illusive Man. Aresh claimed to have been in the ruin for about a year, but his hired security escort spoke as though they’d just arrived. Did the Illusive Man send Aresh to plant false evidence and shift the blame down the chain of command? I shouldn't be the slightest bit surprised.

Even Miranda seems shaken by what we found on Pragia. She adamantly denies Cerberus proper had anything to do with it, insisting that the Teltin project had gone rogue. Sure. Whatever helps her sleep at night. Jack, desperate for satisfaction, nearly started a biotic brawl with Miranda for refusing to apologise on behalf of Cerberus. The sooner we complete our mission and those two go their separate ways the better. Jack has agreed to remain below decks and leave Miranda alone. For now.

Strange that Jack should have escaped the clutches of Cerberus so many years ago, only to find herself once more ensnared in their machinations. Of her own volition, to be sure, but little better for that. We're all in this web together now, all by choice and with good purpose. But once purpose is fulfilled, when the game is played and the cards laid bare, It's all of our necks on the line, even if we survive the mission. It's up to me to find a way out of that noose.

--> I’m seeing reports in the Cerberus intelligence network of an increase in Geth sightings. I’ve just saved a civilian munitions vessel, the MSV Broken Arrow, from colliding with a planet in the Nariph system. The ship had been commandeered by Geth and deliberately set on collision course. That’s just plain odd. The Geth are perhaps the most technologically advanced species in the galaxy, viciously logical and deadly in combat and planning. If they’re resuming hostilities outside of their home system again, why are they resorting to paltry tactics like seizing a civilian freighter? That’s the sort of strategy I’d expect to see used by Batarian pirates, who are more interested in hurting as many people as possible than risking their own skin. Geth are cunning and deadly fighters, ruthlessly implementing vicious attacks upon their enemy, optimizing damage dealt and paying no heed to the cost in their own forces. They’re not at all senselessly suicidal, but destroying their enemy is their primary focus; their own casualties are a mere detail.

There are also reports of Quarian’s encountering the Geth. Tali, in command of a stealthy investigation, has been sent into the Dholen System in the far rim. That system is occupied by Geth. I don’t know why the Quarians sent their people in there, but I plan to find out.

There’s another, seemingly unrelated, reason to investigate Dholen: the Cerberus web. When the Collector threat is dealt with, I’ll be cutting ties with Cerberus and taking the Normandy back to the Alliance. When that happens, the Illusive Man will almost certainly activate failsafes built into the Normandy to prevent me from doing just that. I need help discreetly finding the hooks hidden in the Normandy, and removing them. Immediately if possible, or at the last minute if necessary. Tali is brilliant, even for a Quarian, and knew the old Normandy inside and out. Moreover, she’s someone I can trust. If anyone can free the Normandy, it’s her.

--> Tali and her team are on the planet Haestrom. It looks like they’ve been detected, and are engaging superior Geth forces. Moving in.

--> Most of the Quarian’s are dead, shot by Geth infantry or bombed by the Geth dropship. Tali is alive, as is the Quarian marine charged with her safety, Kal Reeger. They’d been sent to investigate the system’s star, Dholen. It’s aging prematurely, the interior’s mass increasing at an unprecedented rate. Within a hundred years, perhaps more, the star will go critical.

Understanding in theory how to increase the star’s mass is simple; application of dark energy through mass effect technology. There are however two massive problems: the problem of scale and the problem of origin. No known species has every created a warp field powerful enough to crush the interior of a star. It seems unlikely the Geth would use such an inefficient weapon, the effects would take a century at best to come to fruition, and their opponent would have long since discovered the danger and evacuated. Moreover, the Geth are eminently practical, and wouldn’t destroy an entire system and all of the resources on every planet, asteroid and comet therein.

To my surprise, Tali not only agreed to accompany me, she even got official clearance from her superiors to do so. She says I’ll need people I can trust if I’m working with Cerberus. I suspect her superiors sent her orders to infiltrate the Normandy and spy on Cerberus, find out what precisely Commander Shepard is up to.

This business of Dholen reminds me of the mystery of Rothla. An entire planet blown to bits by Krogan. They didn’t live to tell us how they did it, and I suspect they didn’t do it on purpose (you never know with Krogan). It’s possible that clan discovered a hidden super-weapon from a previous cycle meant to fight the Reapers. It’s also possible this soon-to-be-exploding star is something of the same sort ticking over, perhaps accidentally triggered by the Geth. In any case, neither super-weapon, intentional or not, is likely to prove useful.

I’ve received a message from Admiral Hackett. He’s asked me to recover the missing dog tags from the crash site of SR1, and plant a memorial to mark the spot.

According to the Shadow Broker’s intel on Hackett, he refused permission to Alliance forces to detain me. I’m grateful. This job would be much more difficult if I were constantly dodging Alliance agents. I owe Hackett a great deal for his allowing me a chance to prove myself. I’ll plant the memorial before I board that dead Reaper. It won’t be a pleasant experience, but I’m honoured to be given the job.

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18 Demon of the Night Winds

--> Sometimes I think Garrus doesn’t sleep. Every time I check in on him he’s always tinkering and tuning restlessly in the main battery. “Calibrations,” he’ll say, and bury himself in his work again. He’s grown more reckless in combat, taking needless risks with no apparent regard for his own safety. The lives of his lost crew weigh heavily upon him. He told me how his squad died. They were betrayed by one within their own ranks. The traitor, a Turian named Sidonis, is unaccounted for. When Garrus finally finds the one who betrayed them, that man’s life won’t be worth a spent thermal clip.

Miranda seems to have taken courtesy on my part as some kind of suggestion. I don’t know if she’s contracted a genuine crush, perhaps on a backswing from recently-deceased Niket, or if this is some sort of plot to tie me more tightly to Cerberus, to compromise my judgement and learn my inner thoughts. Either way, I want nothing to do with it. I wish the woman would at least put some decent clothes on. Her face alone is distracting enough without flaunting her everything in plain view.

Jack doesn’t mingle much with the crew. She spends all of her time lurking in her lair staked out in the shadowed recesses of the ship’s innards. The engineers have begun scheduling their maintenance with her rare vacancies of the area when I have her out in the field. I still haven’t taken her to blow up Pragia yet, and her impatience is tangible. It’s not healthy for the Normandy to have a disgruntled and anxious super-biotic fuming silently in its bowels.

Joker and EDI are constantly squabbling. If I didn’t know better, just listening to them across the bridge, I’d think they were an old married couple or something.

Samara has asked that we divert to Omega where her target landed. She tells me the fugitive, an Asari with centuries of regular murders, is what her people call an Ardat Yakshi, or Demon of the Night Winds. A rare genetic fluke found only in purebloods, these Asari cannot mate without destroying their partner’s mind. The effect becomes a narcotic to the Ardat Yakshi, and killing becomes addictive. When the condition is detected in a young Asari, they are offered a simple choice: to live a life of monitored seclusion, or to die. This Ardat Yakshi, Morinth, fled. She has evaded pursuit for centuries, and the corpses of those who have lain with her number in the thousands. Samara has devoted four hundred years of her life to tracking down this one Ardat Yakshi, her daughter. When she finds Morinth, she will kill her.

I’m starting to understand why Samara chooses to bind herself to the Justicar code.

Setting course for Omega.

--> Morinth’s presence on Omega confirmed. Her latest victim, a reclusive human girl with artistic talent, was declared a death of brain haemorrhage. That may be technically accurate. Given information found in the girl’s journal, Morinth can likely be found in the VIP section of Afterlife.

Samara wants to handle this differently from my inclination. I’d simply wait in ambush in sight of Afterlife with Garrus and Thane. As soon as Morinth walks out, she receives three high-calibre sniper bullets in the head. Samara thinks it too risky. Having evaded pursuit for centuries, Morinth is naturally cagey and slippery. She might, against all odds, get wind of us and simply disappear again. Or she might survive lethal injury long enough to kill surrounding innocents in a flurry of biotic power amidst her death throes.

Instead, Samara wants me to pose as a potential victim, to lure Morinth out and lower her guard. Morinth is selective in her choice of prey, singling out artists and those who stand out. I daresay I could make myself noticeable among the civilians and thugs in Afterlife easily enough. Once I’ve gotten her attention, I am to engage her in conversation and take the encounter to her apartment, where Samara will confront her and conclude her quest.

I do not like this. Not one little bit. I’ll be walking right into the spider’s web. A most sinister and distasteful spider at that. But to be fair the plan does have its merits. It improves the odds of successfully catching Morinth and limits the chances of civilian casualties. But I still don’t like it. Nevertheless, this is Samara’s mission, and her plan is the most sound. We’ll do it her way. Garrus is furious at being left out, and insists on covering me from a discreet distance the whole time. I’ve agreed, on the grounds that he take every precaution against detection and hold fire unless absolutely necessary. This kill is rightfully Samara’s.

--> Mission complete. The Spider is dead. Making an impression on Morinth was a breeze. Lulling her into a state of greedy assurance was easy. The hard part was resisting the impulse to break her neck the moment I was within arm’s reach. I understand now another reason why Samara chose the plan she did. It wasn’t just to protect bystanders or put Morinth off-guard. It was a trial; giving Morinth one last chance to prove herself to be other than a murderer. But Morinth failed the test. She took the bait and sought to devour the proffered victim. Samara then concluded her four-hundred-year mission, and killed her daughter in single combat.

I have no children of my own. What must it mean to Samara, I cannot imagine. There is nothing I can say to ease the pain. Samara has done the only thing that could be done. It should never have needed to be.

But justice is now served. The Monster is destroyed, and the dead now can rest in peace.

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17 The Shadow Broker

--> When we got to Liara’s apartment we found a police investigation underway. Someone had shot at Liara through the window. A Spectre, an Asari named Vasir, was overseeing the investigation. Turns out she was the one who tried to kill Liara. Long story short, Vasir and a small army of Shadow Broker commandos blew up an entire building and killed dozens of people trying to finish Liara off. I’m pleased to say none of these professional murderers will be continuing their careers of indiscriminate homicide.

As Vasir lay bleeding her lifeblood out on the ground, riddled with bullets far past what would have killed an ordinary soldier, she spent her dying breath accusing me of being no better than her because I’m “friends with Cerberus.” She then lacked the courtesy to stick around long enough for me to tell her off. Yes, I am affiliated with Cerberus, a terrorist organization guilty of a long list of crimes and atrocities. The difference is, unlike Vasir, I’m not doing the bad guy’s dirty work. I’m not the one who murdered innocent civilians. I am by necessity of circumstance taking Cerberus resources for my own ends, saving people from the Collectors. Funny thing is, she kept telling me not to dare judge her. I don’t have to. She’s gone to meet Someone who will.

Liara has the Shadow Broker’s location narrowed down to a star system in the Hourglass Nebula, Sowilo. Time to pay the fellow a friendly little visit.

--> Rather than carry out the painstaking and time-consuming process of searching every planet in the system, Liara calculated the most likely hiding places and prioritized the most bizarre and descriptively prestigious options. Sure enough, we quickly found the Shadow Brokers base, a cruiser of unregistered design, in a site high on Liara’s list. Hidden in the constant storm that follows the edge of the sunset on planet Hagalaz, where the oceans boil during the day and snap freeze ten minutes after sundown. Pleasant locale, this place.

Whether the Shadow Broker lacks the technological sophistication of the Collectors or the storm concealing his ship also hinders his sensors, the stealthy Normandy has managed to slip into a parallel course without apparent detection. Preparing for shuttle launch. Garrus, Liara, and myself will be taking on unknown odds together just like old times.

--> Mission complete. We successfully infiltrated the Shadow Broker’s ship and stormed his office. Quite a sight he was. BigAndUgly’s the word for him. An immense dark red-skinned biped with a three segmented jaw and more eyes than I could count while busy shooting at them.

I’d initially planned on offering him the chance to surrender, but he didn’t seem interested. It’s not like he didn’t know who we were; being the Shadow Broker, and referring to us each by name, he knew everything about us. Which begs the question of how he thought he had any chance against Liara, an Asari pureblood possessed of biotic ability exceptional even for her kind, Garrus Vakarian, AKA Archangel, a Turian vigilante who survived half the thugs in the Omega Nebula trying to kill him, and myself, Humanity’s finest marine. Spectres are the best fighters in the Galaxy, and I’ve killed two of them.

His hubris was somewhat justified on account of a unique defence system in his office, a shield projector in the ceiling that rendered conventional weapons fire against him nearly useless. But lo and behold, Liara had the brilliant idea to destroy the shield projector. Pulled the whole mess down on that monster’s head.

Naturally, the Shadow Broker’s staff started noticing something was amiss, and started radioing in for orders. Liara stepped up. She commandeered the Shadow Broker’s translator, ordered standard procedures resumed and a report on all operations within the next twenty-four hours. No one, not even the people who worked for him on his own ship, had ever seen the Shadow Broker; he was completely anonymous. With control of his terminals and office, Liara is the Shadow Broker.

This turnout surpasses my best hopes for mission results. I’d expected to salvage some data before pulling out of a potentially crashing ship. Instead, Liara now has full access to all of the Shadow Broker’s resources; all of his agents, all of his intel, everything his Galaxy-spanning network has accumulated, is now at our disposal. This is an enormous challenge, but Liara has embraced it. With her direction, this immense web of ominous power with feelers in every major organization and government in the galaxy can be turned from a threat into something better.

I’d suspected that, despite Liara’s hopes, Feron would be long gone, but I was wrong. He was alive and imprisoned on the Shadow Broker’s ship, having spent two years subject to intermittent torture whenever the Shadow Broker got bored. Feron is surprisingly sane and calm despite his treatment, and is even helping Liara sift through the tremendous mountains of information available to her.

The scope and detail of the Shadow Broker’s intel is incredible. Liara can access up-to-date information on what The Illusive Man ate for breakfast, on my crew’s internet activity, on the identity of nearly all major crime bosses in the galaxy, on security codes for top-level access to Turian and Human governments, the list goes on and on. The immediate danger is being overwhelmed by the sheer mass of information available. Liara seems not only to be handling the situation, but even perhaps thriving in it. She never ceases to amaze me.

The Shadow Broker had extensive information on Cerberus, enough to allow the Alliance to put a sever dent in their resources and sniff out a great many nefarious operations and plots, past and present. The list of tamperings in politics conducted by Cerberus, slander, bribery, and murder, is extensive. This information, once revealed, rewrites much of recent history.

Unfortunately, even the Shadow Broker had little information on the Collectors. We do know that he knew about the Reapers, perhaps even before we did, and had been searching for clues the Protheans might have left behind. It doesn’t quite make sense that, knowing about the Collector’s and their connection to Reapers, he had been conducting business with them. Did he calculate his dealings as being of insufficient benefit to the Collectors to constitute a tangible aid to the Reapers?

I now leave Liara one of the most powerful people in the Galaxy, with perhaps the most demanding job in the Galaxy. If anyone is capable of steering the Shadow Broker’s ship, it is her.

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16 Illium

--> Illium is the centre of Asari trade in the Terminus Systems. A superficial veneer of safety and upper-class tidiness masks a core of corruption and crime as dangerous and dirty as Omega. I was stationed here for a time before I was first assigned to the first Normandy; a cushy security assignment as a reward for Elysium. I didn’t much care for it.

Jacob has pulled a few strings and gotten a hold of an experimental armour design for the Normandy, Asari in origin.

Garrus has almost certainly broken regulations to provide me with Turian blueprints for a radical new weapon design, Thanix Cannons. The weapons fire a stream of super-heated molten metal rather than a solid projectile. Not only will it penetrate Collector ship armour, it will in theory, with the right calibration, penetrate the hull of an enemy ship, then the conservation of energy will transfer the force of momentum into heat upon the deceleration of impact, tipping the balance of the molten stream into a full-blown plasma explosion inside the hull before it passes out the other side. This technology and method, if it works as promised, is a massive improvement, not just over Alliance tech, but even Collector armaments. Their particle beam weapon drilled holes clean through the first Normandy. If they had used these Thanix Cannons, no one would have survived that attack. I’m reminded of the old Earth American patrol boats used in the second world war. Their lightweight, thin wooden hulls would allow enemy torpedoes to shoot right through them without detonating.

It will take some time for the new weapons systems and armour to be installed on the Normandy. Fortunately funds are not an object. I’m granting the crew shore leave in cycles, with orders to enjoy our brief stay on Illium and stay out of trouble.

I going to see how Liara’s doing. I don’t expect her to be any more inclined to trust me than Ash or Anderson, but I should at least give her what intel Cerberus has on the Shadow Broker. Being an information broker herself, Liara may have some suggestions for recruits here on Illium.

--> I expected civil courtesy from Liara. I didn’t expect her to welcome me with open arms. It turns out she has good reason to believe I’m actually me; she was the one to recover my lifeless body from the Shadow Broker’s agents who first found me. She’s waited two suspenseful years for the completion of project Lazurus. The poor dear was afraid I would hate her for handing me over to Cerberus. A significant risk, I’ll admit, but hardly worth hating her for. I owe her my life.

Liara does indeed know of two likely candidates for my team. Samara, an Asari Justicar, and Thane Krios, a Drell assassin.

Justicar’s are something akin to knight errants, a monastic order of independent individuals who pursue evildoers and bring justice wherever they go. Absolutely devoted to a strict moral code, they are selfless and tireless warriors, representing the highest beliefs of the Asari. Justicars operate above the law, but are not recognized or even widely known of outside of Asari culture, and there is some concern among the Asari in general about the diplomatic ramifications should a Justicar inflict justice upon a member of another species.

Thane is an assassin of high repute. Despite an extensive kill record, he has had no contracted hits for a stretch of many years. He reportedly has a target on Illium, but Liara cannot find anything regarding a fee.

I’ve given Liara the Cerberus intel on the Shadow Broker, and even helped her to discover one of his spies in the person of her secretary. Liara thinks she can use the information to finally track the Shadow Broker to his lair. I’ve never seen Liara so strongly hate or desire the destruction of anyone like this before, not even Saren or Sovereign who turned her mother into a slave of evil. She says the Shadow Broker was going to sell my body to the Collectors before she stole me from his agents, that her partner in the mission, a Drell named Feron, sacrificed himself to allow her to escape with my corpse. She’d thought him dead, but the Cerberus intel implies otherwise. She’s spent the past two years planning revenge. Now she has the chance to make it a rescue. I’m glad her mission to take down the Shadow Broker (a criminal mastermind with a galaxy-spanning network of spies) ties in with my official goals. Not only is the Shadow Broker a threat in and of himself, his dealings with the Collectors render him a potentially game-changing source of information.

Liara needs some time to work through the data. I’ll come by her apartment when she’s ready. In the meantime, I have two fighters to recruit, and Miranda’s sister to protect.

--> Samara and Thane both agreed to help me stop the Collectors. Each one was on Illium with the intent of killing a target. Both exhibit exceptional combat ability, with both biotics and more conventional methods, though with vastly different approach methods. Samara marched into an Eclipse hideout and massacred the heavily armed mercs in open biotic combat, a veritable goddess of grim and inexorable justice. Thane, in keeping with standard assassin doctrine, prefers the more covert approach; his target never saw him until just before he pulled the trigger in her face. Contrary to standard assassin method, however, he agreed to lend his aid against the Collectors, without charge.

Thane’s target was a wealthy Asari businesswoman with a nasty reputation of murdering her business rivals. Upon infiltrating her property in our search for Thane we discovered her mechs and security shooting the workers assigned to the building. It seems she got wind of Thane’s coming, and had ordered her men to clear out the building immediately. Questioning the workers revealed they hated their employer, but hadn’t quit because of rumours that anyone who did would disappear. Whatever nefarious business Nassana Dantius conducted, she wanted no chance of it getting out.

Samara is pursuing what she only describes as a very dangerous criminal. She’d tracked her target to Illium, but the Eclipse had smuggled the target off-world. I helped Samara find the name of the ship, and she vowed to aid me in my mission against the Collectors. The oath came with a warning that, if ordered to commit a dishonourable deed, she would be obliged to kill me.

I like Thane. He spoke of having done to much to make the Galaxy darker, that he wants to spend what time he has left making it brighter before he dies. Nassana was to have been his last mission, but an opportunity to stop attacks on Human colonies changed his plans. He suffers from terminal illness, non-communicable and painless, but his window is closing. If I can offer him more of what he seeks, atonement for past murder, I am glad.

Samara I do not like. While Thane seems to act from the promptings of his conscience, Samara apparently allows her Justicar code to dictate her actions to the exclusion of all else. As far as I can tell, the code in question is a worthy one that demands its adherents protect the innocent at all cost to one’s self, to smite the evil and the unjust wherever found, but it cannot possibly provide dependable moral guidance for every conceivable situation. I mistrust anyone who hides behind an institutional dogma rather than taking responsibility for their own actions. I believe Samara to possess righteous intentions, but her exclusive and absolute devotion to the code may indicate a hidden frailty of will, perhaps even mental cowardice.

--> Miranda’s sister and her adoptive family are safe in their new location. Miranda and Oriana’s father have no idea now where Oriana is. Unfortunately, the security of Oriana’s family came at a price. Niket, Miranda’s oldest friend, the man who first helped her escape from her father, had been the only link. Niket hadn’t known about Miranda stealing Oriana away from her father, and wanted to return the girl to a life of wealth and safety. When we began convincing him to deceive Mr. Lawson and permit Oriana to live with the only family she’d ever known, the Eclipse captain assigned escort Niket shot him.

It’s come as a welcome change to see Miranda busy thinking about the safety and happiness of another human being, her sister, rather than ceaselessly obsessing about her devotion to Cerberus and adulation of The Illusive Man.

--> Liara sent me a message saying she’d sifted through the data and narrowed down a solid lead. I’m on my way toward her apartment.

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15 Opportunity Strikes

--> Priority message from The Illusive Man. A Turian distress signal was intercepted by Cerberus. The message indicates encounter with a Collector vessel. The Turian ship was destroyed, but purportedly managed to disable the Collector ship. This is an unparalleled opportunity to case a Collector vessel for intel, most crucially on how to navigate the Omega 4 Relay.

The Normandy SR1 was torn apart by a Collector ship without even the chance to return fire. Turian military scientists could have developed secret technology capable of disabling a Collector Ship. Theoretically.

The Normandy is en route. We can get there, search the ship, and get out before Turian rescue arrives.

--> Situation confirmed. The rubble of a Turian frigate is drifting near an apparently lifeless Collector ship. The enemy vessel is adrift and devoid of energy signatures. The hull seems oddly undamaged. Could the Turians have used electronic warfare? I don’t know. Something smells fishy here.

There could still be Collectors alive inside the ship, if so they’ll be making repairs as fast as they can. I’m going in with only a small team, Garrus and Grunt. We’ll slip in, link EDI in to the Collectors’ computers, mine for data, get out, and blow the Collector ship to rubble.

--> “It’s a trap!” The distress signal was a fake. The Collectors had destroyed the Turian ship and forged the signal to lure us in. As soon as we linked EDI in to the Collector servers, a virus attempted to cripple the Normandy and the Collector ship began powering up. Swarms of Collectors and Husks closed in on the squad. Had it not been for EDI opening doors for us we would have never survived. Had she not been managing the Normandy’s software defence, we would have had no getaway option. We got out of there just in time, and the second Normandy very nearly suffered the fate of her predecessor.

Turian transmissions use redundant encryption. EDI detected their absence using the same Cerberus protocols The Illusive Man would have when his agents first found the signal. He knew it was a trap and sent us in blind.

I don’t mind walking into a trap to deliberately spring it under the enemy’s nose. I do object to being lied to. I did of course already know The Illusive Man couldn’t be trusted, but I didn’t expect him to deliberately and needlessly endanger a major investment. I am reminded of that old entertainment series Star Trek, when the supremely logical Starfleet officer makes the mistake of assuming his enemies are also logical. If The Illusive Man’s judgement is as compromised as his scruples, the future of Cerberus is not a rosy one.

The interior of the Collector Ship didn’t look like a ship at all; more akin to some form of dark and twisted hive. Pods for holding prisoners lined the ceilings and littered the floors. We found no surviving victims, only their discarded bodies thrown carelessly aside in heaps. Thank goodness that at least their suffering is over. There was room in that ship to hold every Human in the Terminus Systems. The capacity’s implied intent must not, will not, be fulfilled.

A fascinating and horrific discovery was made. The Collectors are not an original species. Segments of their DNA strand matches patterns found in the cryogenic chambers on Ilos; the Collectors are what’s left of the Protheans. The Reapers didn’t even have the decency to outright destroy them. Instead they kept the last Protheans in a twisted and warped form with no semblance of free will, empty husks with no purpose but to serve as the slaves of their own doom. This is the fate that awaits Humans and every other race in the Galaxy should the Reapers succeed again. A clean death and oblivion would be a preferable fate.

This Collector ship was the same one that destroyed the original Normandy. A man would have to be more than blind not to see a pattern here. Could it be purely revenge that motivates the Reaper’s slaves (if that word even has meaning for them) to target me specifically, or could there be more to it? The Illusive Man wanted me alive and free as a symbol. Perhaps the Reapers want to take me alive for much the same reasons, to turn me into a living symbol of their power by taking the one credited with Sovereign’s death and turning him into their slave for all the Galaxy to see. That is not going to happen.

The virus attack and narrow escape notwithstanding, EDI got the information we need. The Omega 4 Relay leads directly into the bull’s-eye centre of the Galaxy. The only possible explanation must be that a small safe zone is carved out in the midst of black holes and exploding suns therein, a pocket in space likely smaller than the standard drift range of most ships, which exit light-speed with a margin of several thousand kilometres. The Collector ships use a form of IFF signal to ensure the Relay places them within the safe zone. Bitter irony that we now know the tool we need was on the ship we just left.

Fortunately the Illusive Man has another bright idea. His scientists have been studying a top secret find hidden in the periphery of a brown dwarf, a derelict Reaper corpse. The team went silent a few months ago, and The Illusive Man hasn’t sent an investigation yet. Given the connection between the Collectors and the Reapers, it is almost certain that the Reaper will have the requisite IFF to navigate the Reaper-forged Relay.

The Illusive Man has made it quite clear he’s willing to endanger our operations by providing faulty information. If he knows anything more about the situation of this dead Reaper and the risks entailed in boarding it, he hasn’t seen fit to tell us. Boarding a Collector ship is one thing, a Reaper is quite another. Sovereign warped people’s will by its sheer presence. Within days, weeks at best, anyone in its vicinity lost themselves to Indoctrination. It is quite possible that The Illusive Man’s survey team suffered the same fate. If the scientists are still alive, it is in a state that precludes even the possibility of rescue. We have no idea who killed this Reaper, only that its death pre-dates the Protheans. If it’s stayed dead this long, hopefully it will stay dead a little bit longer.

The Reapers will come, sooner or later. When that happens, we need be ready for them. We need to improve our weapons and defences, we will need to unite all spacefaring species against the coming invasion. It won’t be easy. Authority figures are determined to disbelieve the Reapers even exist. If Anderson and I can’t find some way to persuade or circumvent the Citadel Council, the Galaxy will remain blind and fractured until it is too late.

One thing at a time. Anderson is doing what he can in official circles to counter the propaganda of safety. My job is to deal with the immediate threat of the Collectors. When we make our move through the Omega 4 Relay, there’s no telling what we’ll find. We’ll be one squad serving the purpose of an army. We have a good team, some of the best fighters in the Galaxy, but we could use more. We also need to make sure that everyone is at their best, no distractions or complications. We’ll need the best tech and upgrades Mordin can conjure up; standard issue weapons and armour won’t do. The Collectors can detect even the stealthy Normandy, and we can’t afford to be chased away like a scared and fangless rabbit again. We need to improve our ship’s armaments, and find some way to toughen up defences enough to survive open combat with a Collector ship. It’s a tall order, but we have no choice. I’ve put the question to the crew about how to best upgrade the Normandy. Garrus and Jacob say they have some ideas. When we put in to dock on Illlium, we can overhaul the Normandy and implement the designs Garrus and Jacob provide. The Illusive Man can take the bill.

I am told Liara is on Illium, working as an information broker. In direct contradiction of what The Illusive Man initially told me, she is hunting the Shadow Broker, not working for him. The Illusive Man seems to have no concern for even pretending to be trustworthy. He’s told me so many lies I’m starting to lose track. He told me the Alliance was ignoring the Collector threat. Ashley and the Horizon garrison were a direct contradiction of that. He told me the Collector ship was disabled. The question I ask myself is no longer “where is he lying” but “where is he telling the truth.”

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14 Distractions... and a Seed

--> Any good soldier knows that, before going to war, any matters at home must be squared away, all distractions dealt with. If unfinished business is left hanging, focus is compromised. When we finally launch through the Omega 4 Relay, we'll be in uncharted territory in the enemy's element without intel, without support, without backup; it will be a mission as dangerous and demanding as any of us have ever seen. There'll be no room for hesitation, no margin for error: every soldier will have to have a clear mind absolutely focused and clear of doubts or regrets. It won't be enough to have the best. They need to all be at their best.

--> Jacob has a missing Father. Ten years gone, and word of his missing ship surfaces. An anonymous message through the Cerberus Network about his father’s ship, the Hugo Gurnesback. Lost for ten years in the Alpha Draconis system, a distress signal suddenly appeared. Jacob doesn’t expect his father to be alive after all this time of radio silence, but he would like to find out just what the heck is going on.

Zaeed Massani wants to attack a refinery held by the Blue Suns. Something about revenge. As the refinery utilizes slave labour, it seems I also have cause to stop by.

A trip to Tuchanka is necessary for both Dr. Solus and Grunt, but for very different reasons. Mordin received word that one of his assistants in a secret STG op, re-establishing the waning Genophage, has been captured by Krogan clan Weryloc and taken to Tuchanka. I immediately agreed to help Mordin effect a rescue. Grunt, for unknown reasons, has begun to grow increasingly anxious and angry, saying he doesn’t know why, only that he wants to kill, rend and destroy, with his hands and teeth. This anger, he said, seemed foreign to him, a sickness rather than a response or choice. Krogan Medicine is not a popular study, and the Krogan are understandably defensive concerning such matters, and only rarely at best consent to divulging relevant information to the galactic public. If a cure to Grunt’s condition can be found, it will be on the Krogan homeworld.

Miranda has with verbalized regret asked for my help. She needs my assistance to oversee the safe relocation of her twin sister, whom she helped escape from their father. She tells me Mr. Lawson is a ruthless man of wealth and ambition set upon defining his legacy, and his daughters were merely tools to that end. Miranda’s sister, Oriana, is on Illium. The scheduled relocation occurs in a few days time. I’ve agreed to bring the Normandy into Illium in time for Miranda to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

Jack has completed her research. She’s found the location of the secret Cerberus base where she was raised, and wants to blow it up. It seems she was taken by Cerberus in her infancy and raised to become a super-biotic. The methods used were horrific. Other children were used as test subjects to ensure that Jack herself would not die from the treatments they inflicted on her. 

Cerberus is composed of isolated Cells, the commanding officer of each answering directly to the Illusive Man. It is a system that allows people like Jacob to believe that, because they personally are doing good things, Cerberus as a whole is good. It is uncertain if The Illusive Man knew the extent and nature of means that Cell was using toward their assigned end, but I suspect he didn’t care to look too closely, so long as they delivered their end product. But instead Jack broke out and tore the place apart. It now lies deserted and empty, an abandoned house of horror that Jack wants to thoroughly and finally obliterate. I can certainly sympathize, and have promised Jack a detour to that end before we make our move through the Omega 4 Relay.

--> The distress signal from the Hugo Gurnesback originated from the planet 2175 Aeia. When we investigated, we found Jacob’s father, Ronald Taylor, the only surviving officer of the ship, the rest of the remaining crew all cognitively compromised. They’d crash-landed on 2175 Aeia, a planet capable of sustaining human life, but providing only toxic food that resulted in significant neural decay. The decision was made to reserve food stores from the ship for the officers who were building the distress beacon, the rest of the crew would have to eat the indigenous plants and hope for treatment upon rescue; a calculated sacrifice of limited scope to ensure the eventual recovery of all concerned. 

 

But in the end, Ronald Taylor had slid into the role of supreme being on the planet through his maintained intelligence and control of the security drones, dominating the camp, turning out the other men, and living for ten years in a harem of the crew women. When after ten years food stores from the ship ran low, and he faced the threat of also surviving on the mind-decaying vegetation, he finally activated the distress beacon. 

 

He is now in Alliance custody with charges pending, his crew in rehabilitative treatment. Jacob has denounced his father and put the matter behind him. For a moment, when we met Ronald Taylor on the planet, I’d thought Jacob was going to kill him. I’m pleased to see he not only had the self possession to refrain without my intervention, but the strength to, once resolved, put the issue behind him.

The tip about the distress signal came from Miranda. She told Jacob that she’d been keeping a promise. It seems those two have more of a history together than I’d thought. Given their disparate characters, I’m not surprised it didn’t work out. Jacob is a true-blue honest and straight-forward chap, a regular brick whose greatest fault lies in trusting too easily, believing that because his own intentions are pure, Cerberus is too. With the likes of Jack and Grunt aboard, he’s far from the most powerful team member, but he and Garrus are the most trustworthy and dependable squadmates I have.

--> It turns out Zaeed founded the Blue Suns, him and his business partner Vido. Vido turned on him and tried to murder him. That was twenty years ago. Now that he’d finally caught up to Vido, Zaeed was so reckless and angry he deliberately set the whole bloody refinery ablaze when we moved in. Consequently we had to devote our immediate attention to saving the slaves from the fire. Zaeed seemed to think it my fault that Vido got away. After I explained to him the principle he had just so clearly demonstrated, the danger in putting personal emotions ahead of the mission, he ruefully consented to fall in line. Hopefully the demonstration of priorities has not been wasted on him.

--> Tuchanka is in the midst of political revolution, as in there is a movement for the clans to stop killing each other and work together. Wrex has been busy over the last two years. Not only did he rise to the position of Chief of clan Urdnot, he’s busy at work trying to establish regular diplomatic ties between the clans, foment alliances and cease constant infighting. I’d known since I first met him that Wrex was, despite possessing the typical ferocity and bloodthirst of his kind, more contemplative and thoughtful between battles than most Krogan, but I never would have expected him to possess the magnetism and will required to compel his warlike kin to put aside traditional animosity and unify in mutual interest of survival.

It seems nothing was strictly wrong with Grunt, he is merely hitting maturity, and was experiencing what was more or less the Krogan equivalent of teenage angst. Upon successfully weathering the Krogan Rite of Passage, a sequenced battle against beasts in an arena that culminated in surviving a Thresher Maw, Grunt was granted full citizenship in the clan, becoming Urdnot Grunt. When told to choose a Battlemaster to serve, Grunt surprised me by declaring me his Battlemaster. It seems that despite our initial cold terms, Grunt has grown fond of his “matchless” commander. I’m touched.

Now having found his place and purpose, Grunt has ceased fearing and resenting his rage, and instead embraced it for its purpose, making him a vicious Krogan warrior with Clan and allegiance. As he puts it, “our enemies are in trouble, Shepard.”

Having touched base with Wrex, calmed Grunt, and solidified respect in clan Urdnot, we can seek out Mordin’s assistant, Maelon.

--> Weyrlock hadn’t captured Maelon. He’d gone to them willingly, to undo his and his teacher’s work by curing the Genophage. He’d stolen the STG Genophage data, and was conducting experiments on living subjects; Human, Turian, Varren, even Krogan. Weyrlock Guld, the clan chief, was a racial supremacist megalomaniac with delusions of destiny, intent upon reviving the Krogan Rebellions and forming a Galaxy-spanning Krogan Empire, killing all Turians and Asari but keeping the Salarians as slaves and food.

Creating the Genophage was arguably the lesser of two evils. I’m glad that the decision to deploy it was never put to me. I can readily understand and sympathize with any Krogan wanting to cure the Genophage, but when the Krogan in possession of a potential cure also possess the intent to “spread across the Galaxy in a sea of blood,” I have no compunctions about shutting down their operation with lethal force.

When we fought our way through the base guards and confronted Maelon, he insisted he was doing the right thing, that the end justified any means to achieve it. Mordin declared his goals unacceptable and his means the same. Had I not intervened, he would have punctuated the sentence with a bullet. 

The research base has been gutted of all data, the servers inside wiped clean.  Weryloc Guld and his guards are dead, Maeolon has been sent packing, and his research is in Mordin’s custody in the Normandy’s lab.

I wonder how long he can keep his hands off it.
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13 Horizon

--> An emergency message from the Illusive Man. Horizon, one of our colonies in the Terminus Systems, just went silent. It might not be Collectors, but it could be. Whatever the cause, it can’t be good. As the colony lies outside Alliance space, the nearest response is days away, far too late to prevent imminent disaster. By good fortune the Normandy is relatively nearby, and can be there in a matter of hours. Still a dangerous delay, but hopefully not enough to render arrival pointless.

Mordin's countermeasure is now ready, in the eleventh hour as it were; efficacy is still strictly theoretical. Should his designs fail to deliver, this will be a short mission.

The team is arming up. Whatever we find happening on Horizon, we’ll be ready. If it is Collectors we’ll be facing, it’ll be the first time any of us have seen them in person. Courage and cool mind in the face of the alien will be just as crucial as combat ability. Time to show these monsters that the prey can bite.

--> Hostile presence on Horizon confirmed. We're going in.

--> It was Collectors. We arrived mid-session to interrupt their seizure of the colonists. We commandeered the colony’s defence towers, plugged EDI in to the system, and forced the Collector ship to withdraw. Special commendation to Dr. Solus in successfully veiling us from the Seeker Swarms. We saved the colony from complete capture, but half of the colonists were taken. This is the first time a Collector attack has ever been hampered, but the Human losses forbid me from claiming victory.

Ashley Williams was there. She had been assigned to command the Horizon defence garrison, and was one of the first to succumb to the debilitating Seeker Swarms. Whether by sheer chance or divine providence she was not among those taken. I don’t know what I would have done had that happened. So many were taken, and one alone dogs my mind. We still don’t know why the Collectors take their victims alive. Maybe it’s best not to know.

It didn’t go well between us. How could it have. As far as Ash knew, I had been dead for two years. Then I, or something wearing my face, shows up flanked by Cerberus personnel at the moment a Human colony is under attack. She told me Cerberus was in fact the Alliance’s prime suspect for the abductions. Far better had she continued to think me dead than see me working with terrorists. She would have been perfectly within her rights, and duty as an Alliance officer, to attempt arresting me. I took my team and departed as soon as possible.

When the Collector threat has been neutralized, I will return, and maybe, just maybe, I may explain, and set things right between us. Thank God she was spared.

Grunt should be pleased. The Collectors proved themselves a tough fight, and even he must have had his fill. They appear to be insect-like humanoids, strangely crude and rudimentary in form, yet ruthlessly efficient fighting machines. The team performed admirably, no one flinched or failed to perform their duty. Bullets and blue fire flew, and Collector infantry, caught in the course of their grisly task, fell in swarms. The Collector leader never personally set foot outside his vessel, but appears to have the ability to possess any one of his soldiers at will. Harbinger, as he calls himself, addressed me by name, though I confess I little heeded his taunts; I was too busy directing the squad and mowing down Collectors with gunfire. I must have killed Harbinger a dozen times over in the course of the battle, as he left control of each successive body for the next.

We met more than Collectors during the battle of Horizon: they had brought with them human Husks. Different from the Husks the Geth made, these seemed a less electrified variant. All readings and samples acquired are being examined by Mordin. If we learn nothing else, it now seems quite apparent that the Collectors are indeed connected somehow to the Reapers.

We won’t win against the Collectors by responding to their attacks. Next time the colony hit will likely be too far away to reach in time for even a partial victory. We need to hit them where they live. The only way to do that is to find some means of successfully navigating the Omega 4 Relay. The Illusive man tells me he is assigning all available resources to that end. In the meantime, I’ll continue building my team.

It was no coincidence the Collectors struck where they did. The Illusive Man admitted to having let slip rumours of my revival, along with the fact that Ashley Williams was stationed on Horizon. His theory that the Collectors are after me personally, and anyone connected to me, seems to be proven.

Fool that I was, I'd believed the Illusive Man though I'd thought myself on guard. He'd told me that the Alliance was paying no heed whatever to the abductions, and now I find Horizon manned by an Alliance garrison complete with advanced defence cannons, with the ranking officer instructed to investigate possible connections between Cerberus and the attacks. I'm not surprised the Illusive Man lied. I'm surprised I took his word for it. I'll not be making that mistake again.

I still cannot quite comprehend the fact that Ash was so nearly lost, so narrowly spared from the ruthless alien hands that would have snatched her away. I cannot bring myself to believe that any conscious Will would have chosen to spare one specifically when so many others of equal value in His eyes were taken.

This has to end. I'll see it done.

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